| Honorific-Prefix: | Senator |
| Office: | Senator |
| Term Start: | 29 June 2020 |
| Constituency: | Industrial and Commercial Panel |
| Birth Date: | [1] |
| Birth Place: | County Meath, Ireland |
| Nationality: | Irish |
| Party: | Independent |
| Otherparty: | Fianna Fáil (until 2011) |
Sharon Keogan (born March 1967) is an Irish independent politician who has served as a Senator for the Industrial and Commercial Panel since April 2020.[2]
Keogan started out her political career on the Fianna Fáil national executive, however, having failed to secure a nomination to run for Fianna Fáil, she left the party.[3] She joined an alliance of independent candidates known as New Vision. She is still part of an independent alliance of various candidates. Keogan unsuccessfully contested the general elections of 2011, 2016 and 2020[4] [5] in the Meath East constituency.
She was a member of Meath County Council from 2014 to 2020, representing the Laytown-Bettystown local electoral area.[6] Her sister, Geraldine, was co-opted to fill the vacancy on 8 June 2020.[7] [8] Although she also won an additional seat in the Ashbourne local electoral area at the 2019 local elections,[9] she secured election in both the Ashbourne LEA and the Laytown-Bettystown LEA, becoming the first woman in Ireland elected to two electoral areas.[10] One of the seats had to be vacated as no member may hold two seats simultaneously. She tried to claim two State grants after her election in two boroughs.[9] She was replaced in this seat by Amanda Smith.[11] Following her election to the Seanad, her sister Geraldine Keogan was co-opted to fill her seat on Meath County Council.[12]
Keogan made national headlines in January 2020, after she posted on her Facebook account asking whether disabled children should be microchipped following the death of Nóra Quoirin in Malaysia.[13]
It was in the same month that Keogan's office was the subject of a suspected case of arson after she made public statements about the killing of a taxi driver in her area. Keogan speculated that her anti-drug views had also made her a target of local criminals.[14] [15]
In September 2021 Keogan was criticised after she stated that there is "an organised takeover at every level in our society" by the LGBT community in response to the Katherine Zappone controversy. Keogan went on to indicate that she believed that "governments around the world" are trying to "catapult" LGBT people into high-level jobs. Former Leas-Chathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann Jerry Buttimer responded that "She is entitled to her own opinions but she can also be asked to explain herself and to be challenged" and criticised her statement as suggesting there is some kind of on-going conspiracy and for echoing far-right sentiments. The Meath branches of the Social Democrats and People Before Profit also issued statements condemning Keogan's assertions, with the Meath-based president of Ógra Fianna Fáil, Bryan Mallon, stating that Keogan had looked at Zapponegate and had “added 2 + 2 together and got 5, ridiculously using it as an opportunity to dismiss the issues that members of the LGBTQIA+ community suffer daily, not least fair representation in government".[16] In a statement given to The Times, Keogan claimed she had "an established record in supporting and participating in LGBT education programmes within my community" but was "opposed to governments, whether the Biden administration or the Irish government, appointing personnel based on their sexual orientation".[17]
Since joining the Seanad, Keogan, alongside Peter Fitzpatrick, Mattie McGrath, Carol Nolan and Rónán Mullen have formed the Oireachtas Life and Dignity Group; a unit which advocates for pro-life and anti-euthanasia views. In 2021 the group tried to build support for a proposed "Foetal Pain Relief Bill", but the bill was ultimately voted down in December of that same year.[18]
In April 2022 Keogan congratulated right-wing Hungarian leader Victor Orban upon his party's victory in the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election, stating on Twitter: "#VictorOrban winner alright. When 6 different parties try to squash nationalism, this is what happens. Orban doesn't bend the knee to anyone. #Hungary first, his #people first and #family first".[19] Keogan was subsequently criticised for that view, amongst others, in an article by Una Mullally for the Irish Times.[20]
It was also in April 2022 that Keogan was criticised by fellow senators such as Lynn Ruane after Keogan expressed the view that surrogacy was "harmful, exploitative and unethical", that she "wholeheartedly objects to the commercialisation of the human child", and told a witness representing the organisation Irish Gay Dads during an Oireachtas Committee exploring surrogacy laws that he was "extremely lucky to be here today". Following more questions by Keogan to witnesses that were ruled to be out of order, interim chairperson Kathleen Funchion told Keogan she was being disrespectful and was asked to leave on the grounds of disorderly conduct.[21] [22] Keogan subsequently objected to comments by Ruane that Keogan was being "crude and cold" and that she was expressing "personal bigotry" on the topic. Keogan wrote, "I wish to object to this deeply personal attack on me during a public meeting and contend that the language used by the member was inflammatory, discriminatory and sought to characterise me and my contribution unfairly" and commented that the committee was acting like an "echo chamber".[23] [24] [25] She resigned from the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth in April 2022, stating that she no longer felt "safe or protected as a member of the committee".[26]
Between 2021 and 2022, the Irish government discovered that €1,100,000 it had allocated to be spent through various schemes was never used. That money was then pooled together and reallocated to a number of LGBT groups by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.[27] [28] In the Seanad in April 2023, Keogan asked Minister Roderic O'Gorman "Why were only LGBT organisations in receipt of the funding? Were there no other initiatives that would have benefited from this?" before stating that unnamed parties were accusing O'Gorman of engaging "in a sort of ideology-based parochialism, prioritising pet projects which fall under your Government's remit over others".[27] [28]
A reportedly furious[27] [28] O'Gorman defended the action as a “standard and commonplace feature of department financial procedure" and noted 26 similar transfers had also occurred in a similar time period, but this was the only one that he, a gay man, was being asked about. O'Gorman accused Keogan of "peddling lies" and "in doing so, although always implied, always unspoken, the charge rests that I as a gay politician must be up to no good in an effort to benefit my own community. That I would go as far as to take funding away from other vulnerable groups to do so". O'Gorman reiterated his defence of the spending, denied any bias, and suggested that Keogan was acting entirely in bad faith and that she knew the spending was entirely routine.[27] [28]
In April 2023 Keogan posted a tweet which contained an image of Kevin Bakhurst, Gabriel Makhlouf, Sebastian Barnes of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, Drew Harris and Jeremy Godfrey, chairperson of the Irish Media Commission, with the accompanying text "5 key appointments governing us all made in the last 5 years. No jobs for the Irish here. Do they not trust us? What's wrong with the Irish?" No Irish need apply".[29]
The tweet was widely condemned as xenophobic across the Irish political spectrum; the next day numerous members of the Seanad (Michael McDowell, Victor Boyhan, Gerard Craughwell, David Norris, Timmy Dooley, Fiona O'Loughlin and Tom Clonan) all formally denounced Keogan and her tweet.[29] Timmy Dooley stated "I’m absolutely really annoyed by what Senator Keogan posted. It’s disgusting. I know three of the individuals and they are three of the finest people that you could find anywhere. And I’d ask Senator Keogan to reflect on this: I saw her in the last week running to get a ringside seat to be part of . If she feels so strongly about migration and immigration she shouldn’t have been in there. We were celebrating the fact that an Irishman had made it to the highest office in the United States. And yet, we see this kind of vile language being used against some of our nearest neighbours."[29]
It was also widely pointed out in the media that the tweet was incorrect; although Drew Harris is originally from Belfast, he is an Irish citizen.[29] [30] In the immediate aftermath of the tweet, Keogan did not attend the Seanad and she refused to speak with the media.[29]